Official Blog of Author MICHAEL THOMAS BARRY.
A blog which discusses varied topics related to my many books. He is a columnist for Crime Magazine.com where he pens "This Week in Crime History."
Michael is a graduate of Cal State Fullerton and is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, The Crime Writers Association, The Authors Guild, and American Society of Journalist and Authors. Questions or comments to Mikeb63@aol.com

On March 2, 1978, two men steal the corpse of silent film
actor Charlie Chaplin from a cemetery in the Swiss village of
Corsier-sur-Vevey, located in the hills above Lake Geneva, near Lausanne,
Switzerland. A comic actor who was perhaps most famous for his alter ego, the
Little Tramp, Chaplin was also a respected filmmaker whose career spanned
Hollywood’s silent film era and the momentous transition to “talkies” in the
late 1920s.

After Chaplin’s widow, Oona, received a ransom demand of
some $600,000, police began monitoring her phone and watching 200 phone kiosks
in the region. Oona had refused to pay the ransom, saying that her husband
would have thought the demand was preposterous. The callers later made threats
against her two youngest children. Oona Chaplin was Charlie’s fourth wife and
the daughter of the playwright Eugene O’Neill. She and Chaplin were married in
1943, when she was 18 and he was 54; they had eight children together. The
family had settled in Switzerland in 1952 after Chaplin was accused of being a
Communist sympathizer.

After a five-week investigation, police arrested two auto
mechanics, Roman Wardas, of Poland, and Gantscho Ganev, of Bulgaria. On May 17 they
led authorities to Chaplin’s body, which they had buried in a cornfield about
one mile from the Chaplin family’s home in Corsier. Political refugees from
Eastern Europe, Wardas and Ganev apparently stole Chaplin’s body in an attempt
to solve their financial problems. Wardas, identified as the mastermind of the
plot, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years of hard labor. As he told it, he
was inspired by a similar crime that he had read about in an Italian newspaper.
Ganev was given an 18-month suspended sentence, as he was believed to have
limited responsibility for the crime. As for Chaplin, his family reburied his
body in a concrete grave to prevent future theft attempts.

Check back every
Monday for a new installment of “This Week in Crime History.”

Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for www.crimemagazine.com and is the author
of six nonfiction books that includes Murder
and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California. Visit Michael’s website
www.michaelthomasbarry.com for
more information. His book can be purchased from Amazon through the following
link:

On March 2, 1904, Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr.
Seuss, was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. Geisel, who used his middle name
(which was also his mother's maiden name) as his pen name, wrote 48 books, including
some for adults which have sold well over 200 million copies and been
translated into multiple languages. Dr. Seuss books are known for their
whimsical rhymes and quirky characters. Geisel graduated from Dartmouth
College, where he was editor of the school's humor magazine, and studied at
Oxford University. There he met Helen Palmer, his first wife and she encouraged
him to become a professional illustrator. Back in America, Geisel worked as a
cartoonist for a variety of magazines.

The first children's book that Geisel wrote and illustrated,
"And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street," was rejected by over
two dozen publishers before making it into print in 1937. Geisel's first
bestseller, "The Cat in the Hat," was published in 1957. The story of
a mischievous cat in a tall striped hat came about after his publisher asked
him to produce a book using 220 new-reader vocabulary words that could serve as
an entertaining alternative to the school reading primers children found
boring. Other Dr. Seuss classics include "Yertle the Turtle,"
"If I Ran the Circus," "Fox in Socks" and "One Fish,
Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish." Some of his tackled serious themes.
"The Butter Battle Book" (1984) was about the arms buildup and
nuclear war threat during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. "Lorax" (1971)
dealt with the environment. Many Dr. Seuss books have been adapted for
television and film, including "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" and
"Horton Hears a Who!" In 1990, Geisel published a book for adults
titled "Oh, the Places You'll Go" that became a hugely popular graduation
gift for high school and college students. Geisel, who lived and worked in an
old observatory in La Jolla, California, known as "The Tower," died
September 24, 1991, at age 87. His remains were cremated and the disposition is
unknown.

Check back every
Friday for a new installment of “This Week in Literary History.”

Michael Thomas Barry is the author of six nonfiction books
that includes the award winning Literary
Legends of the British Isles and recently released America’s Literary Legends. Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com for
more information. His books can be purchased from Amazon through the following
links:

On February 27, 1936, Shirley Temple receives a new contract
from 20th Century Fox that will pay the seven-year-old actress $50,000 per
film. Temple was born on April 23, 1928 in Santa Monica, California, and began appearing
in a series of short films spoofing current movies, called Baby Burlesks, at the age of four. At six, she attracted attention
with her complex song-and-dance number "Baby Take a Bow," performed
with James Dunn, in the 1934 movie Stand
Up and Cheer. Based on the film's success, 20th Century Fox signed Temple to
a seven-year contract. She would appear in a string of films that year and the
next, including Little Miss Marker, Change of Heart, Bright Eyes and Curly Top.
By 1938, Temple was the number one box-office draw in America. The public loved
her, and she routinely upstaged her adult counterparts on the big screen.

Temple's career began to fade in her teenage years and in 1950,
she retired from movies. That same year she married naval officer Charles
Black, changing her name to Shirley Temple Black. (She had been previously
married to Jack Agar. In 1967, Temple Black launched a political career,
running as the Republican candidate for a congressional seat in San Mateo,
California but lost the election. The following year, President Richard Nixon
appointed her an ambassador to the United Nations; she worked for the State
Department for more than two decades. She was the first woman to ever serve as
chief of protocol, a post she held for 11 years under President Gerald R. Ford,
and President George H.W. Bush named her ambassador to Czechoslovakia in 1989. She
became a spokeswoman for breast cancer awareness after she discovered a
malignant lump in her breast in 1972 and underwent a mastectomy. In 1999, Temple
Black received a medal from the Kennedy Center for lifetime achievement to the
United States and the world. On February 10, 2014, Temple died at her Woodside,
California. Her remains were cremated and given to the family.

Check back every
Wednesday for a new installment of “This Week in Hollywood History.”

Michael Thomas Barry is the author of six nonfiction books
that includes the award winning Fade to
Black Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats. Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com for
more information. His book can be purchased from Barnes and Noble through the
following link:

On March 1, 1932, the young son of famed aviator Charles
Lindbergh was kidnapped from the family's home in Hopewell, New Jersey. Anne Lindbergh
discovered a ransom note in their child's empty room. The kidnapper had used a
ladder to climb up to the open second-floor window and had left muddy
footprints in the room. The ransom note written in poor English, demanded
$50,000. The crime captured the attention of the entire nation and the Lindbergh
family was inundated by offers of assistance and false clues. For three days,
investigators found nothing and there was no further word from the kidnappers.
Then, a new letter arrived which demanded $70,000.

Dr. Condon, a retired teacher and coach from the Bronx
who had volunteered, acted as the go-between. After Condon and Lindbergh
delivered the ransom money on April 2, the kidnappers indicated that the child was
on a boat off the coast of Massachusetts. However, after an exhaustive search
of every port, there was no sign of either the boat or the child. Soon after, a
renewed search of the area near the Lindbergh home turned up the baby's body.
He had been killed the night of the kidnapping. The heartbroken Lindbergh’s eventually
donated the home to charity and moved away.

The kidnapping looked like it would go unsolved until
September 1934, when a marked bill from the ransom turned up. The gas station
attendant who had accepted the bill wrote down the license plate number of the
car. It was tracked back to a German immigrant, Bruno Hauptmann. When his home
was searched, detectives found $14,000 of Lindbergh ransom money. Hauptmann
claimed that a friend had given him the money to hold and that he had no
connection to the crime. The resulting trial was a national sensation. The
prosecution's case was not particularly strong and the main evidence, apart
from the money, was handwriting experts and Hauptmann’s connection with the
type of wood that was used to make the ladder. Still, the evidence and intense
public pressure was enough to convict Hauptmann. In April 1936 he was executed
in the electric chair. In the aftermath of the case kidnapping was made a
federal offense.

Check back every
Monday for a new installment of “This Week in Crime History.”

Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for www.crimemagazine.com and is the author
of six nonfiction books that includes the award winning Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California. Visit
Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com
for more information. His book can be purchased from Amazon through the
following link:

On February 25, 1956, Sylvia Plath met Ted Hughes, at a
party in Cambridge, England. The two poets fell in love at first sight and
married four months later. Plath was born on October 27, 1932 in Boston, her
father was a professor at Boston University and was an expert on bumblebees.
Plath's father died at home in October 1940 after a lingering illness that
consumed the energy of the entire household and left the family penniless.
Sylvia's mother went to work as a teacher and raised her two children alone.

Sylvia was an outstanding student and won a scholarship
to Smith, published her first short story, "Sunday at the Mintons,"
in Mademoiselle while she was still
in college, and then won a summer job as "guest managing editor" at
the magazine. After the job ended, she suffered a nervous breakdown, tried to
commit suicide, and was hospitalized. She returned to school to finish her
senior year, won a Fulbright to England, and went to Cambridge after
graduation, where she met Hughes. They married on June 12, 1956. The couple
moved to Boston in 1958 and Plath attended poetry workshops with Robert Lowell,
whose confessional approach to poetry deeply influenced her. Hughes won a
Guggenheim fellowship in 1959, and the pair returned to England, where Plath
had her first child.

Her first poetry collection, Colossus, was published in 1960 to favorable reviews. The couple
bought a house in Devon and had a second child in 1962, the same year that
Plath discovered that her husband was having an affair. He left the family to
move in with his lover, and Plath desperately struggled against her own
emotional turmoil and depression. She moved to London and wrote dozens of her
best poems in the winter of 1962. Her only novel, The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical account of a college girl who
works at a magazine in New York and suffers a breakdown, was published in early
1963, but received mediocre reviews. With sick children, frozen pipes, and a
severe case of depression, Plath took her own life in February 11, 1963, at age
30. Hughes edited several volumes of her poetry, which appeared after her death.
Plath was buried at the Heptonstall Church cemetery in West Yorkshire, England.

Check back every
Friday for a new installment of “This Week in Literary History.”

Michael Thomas Barry is the author of six nonfiction books that includes Literary Legends of the
British Isles and America’s Literary Legends. Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com for
more information. His books can be purchased from Amazon through the following
links:

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

This week (February 18-24) in Hollywood history – Winners
of the first Academy Awards were announced (February 18, 1929); Lee Marvin was
born (February 19, 1924); Bob Hope married Dolores Reade (February 19, 1934);
Elizabeth Taylor married Michael Wilding (February 21, 1952); Ann Sheridan was
born (February 21, 1915); Greta Garbo made her U.S. film debut (February 21,
1926); Drew Barrymore was born (February 22, 1975); Madel Normand died
(February 23, 1930); Director Victor Fleing was born (February 23, 1889); Variety magazine announced that MGM had
purchased the rights to the film version of The
Wizard of Oz (February 24, 1938).

Highlighted Story
of the Week -

On February 21, 1926, Swedish actress Greta Garbo made
her U.S. screen debut in The Torrent.

Born Greta Louisa Gustaffson in 1905, Garbo grew up in a
poor family in Stockholm. At age 13, she started working as a lather girl at a
barbershop and later moved to a department store, where she was asked to appear
in a publicity film for the store. Later, she appeared in a publicity film for
a bakery. Pleased with her success, she applied for and won a scholarship to
the Royal Dramatic Theater’s acting school, where she was discovered by
director Mauritz Stiller, one of the most powerful directors in Swedish cinema.
He cast her as the Countess Elizabeth Dohna in his critically acclaimed 1924
film The Legend of Gosta Berling,
which ran some four hours; he also gave her the now-famous stage name of Garbo.

In 1924, Louis B. Mayer of Hollywood’s powerful
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio hired Stiller on contract and brought him to the
United States. Stiller only accepted the job on the condition that MGM contract
Garbo as well. Mayer agreed, although he reportedly considered Garbo too
full-figured to succeed as an actress in America at the time. In The Torrent, a silent film co-starring
the Latin heartthrob Ricardo Cortez, Garbo played a Spanish peasant girl who
becomes an opera star. Her charisma, beauty and acting talent made an immediate
impact on the filmmakers, so much so that they raised her salary even before
the movie was released. When it hit theaters, Garbo was an immediate sensation.
For his part, Stiller had been prevented by Mayer from directing The Torrent, and clashed with the studio
repeatedly during the filming of a follow-up picture, The Temptress. Fired mid-production, he had an unhappy stint at
Paramount before being forced to return to Sweden, where he died in 1945; the
loss reportedly left Garbo devastated.

Unlike many of her contemporaries, Garbo successfully
made the transition to sound after becoming a star during the silent film era.
Her first talking picture was Anna
Christie in 1930, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best
Actress. Romantically linked with numerous fellow celebrities, including her
frequent co-star John Gilbert, Garbo never married. Reserved and withdrawn, she
recoiled from publicity, cloaking herself in dark glasses and large hats when
she traveled. “I want to be alone,” a line from her 1939 film Grand Hotel, has often been used to sum
up her aversion to fame. Garbo’s reclusiveness only heightened her mystique.
Although she retired from moviemaking in 1941, she was chosen by Variety in 1950 as the best actress of
the first half of the 20th century. She became an American citizen in 1951, and
was honored with a special Academy Award for her “unforgettable” work in 1954. Greta
Garbo died on April 15, 1990 in New York City from pneumonia and her cremated
remains were buried at the Woodland Cemetery in Stockholm Sweden.

Check back every
Wednesday for a new installment of “This Week in Hollywood History.”

Michael Thomas Barry is the author of six nonfiction
books and includes the award winning Fade
to Black: Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats, 1927-1950. Visit Michael’s
website www.michaelthomasbarry.com
for more information. His book can be purchased from Amazon through the
following link:

On February 16, 1894, old west gunslinger John Wesley Hardin
was pardoned and released from a Texas prison after spending 15 years in custody
for murder. Hardin, who was reputed to have shot and killed a man just for
snoring, was 41 years old at the time of his release. During his lifetime, Hardin
probably killed in excess of 40 people beginning in 1868. When he was only 15, he
killed an ex-slave in a fight and became a wanted fugitive. Two years later, he
was arrested for murder in Waco, Texas. Although it was actually one of the few
he had not committed, Hardin did not want to run the risk of being convicted
and fled to Abilene, Kansas. Luckily for him Abilene was run by a good friend, Wild
Bill Hickok. However, one night Hardin was disturbed by the snoring in an
adjacent hotel room and fired two shots through the wall, killing the man.
Fearing that not even Wild Bill would stand for such a senseless crime, Hardin
moved on again.

On May 26, 1874, Hardin was celebrating his 21st birthday
when he got into an altercation with a man who fired the first shot. Hardin
fired back and killed the man. A few years later, Hardin was tracked down in
Florida and brought to trial. Because it was one of the more defensible
shootings on Hardin's record, he was spared the gallows and given a life
sentence. After his pardon, he moved to El Paso and became a successful attorney.
But his past eventually caught up with him, and on the night of August 19, 1895
he was shot in the back of the head by former outlaw and Constable John Selman
Sr., as revenge for a petty argument.

Check back every
Monday for new installment of “This Week in Crime History.”

Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for www.crimemagazine.com and is the author
of six nonfiction books that includes the award winning true crime book, Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked
Early California, 1849-1949. Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com for
more information. His book can be purchased from Amazon through the following
link: